Interdisciplinary Research 2.0

Some people say there is no "i" in team. That’s because they’ve never done interdisciplinary
work before. For a small university in a small town, we're making a big difference.

Interdisciplinary encompasses research from different fields of study. For some researchers
that means piling on prefixes and thinly slicing research problems, like a biogeochemist
studying micronanotech accumulations in histosol soils. That's highly specialized.

Rather than narrowing down, our interdisciplinary work is about broadening and applying
research, improving on interdisciplinary methods. We're taking collaborative work
to the next level. Some of projects are transdisciplinary—bringing in non-scientists
and working across disciplines instead of at the convenient intersection of disciplines.
Others are translational—turning basic science into applied science.

"You take all these different experts and get them working on the same problem, then
you find out all these different dimensions."Guy Meadows

This article showcases some of the Interdisciplinary 2.0 projects happening at Michigan
Tech. There's everything from repurposing minewater reservoirs to detailing black
carbon particles to including people in geohazards assessments. Teamwork drives this
research—and success centers on how well teams can bridge their individual disciplines.
It's humbling. Each researcher doesn't know all the answers; by working together,
they can share their knowledge and learn from others, which better equips them to
solve entrenched problems and dig into new research ideas.

This kind of interdisciplinary work is just how we do research at Michigan Tech.

Solar

The solar industry is skyrocketing.

In the past several years alone, the nation's tally of new photovoltaic installations
has nearly doubled. For the first half of 2015, the Solar Energy Industries Association
(SEIA) reports that solar supplied 40 percent of all new electric generating capacity,
surpassing every other energy sector. Next year, SEIA forecasts 25 to 50 percent industry
growth.

The solar industry is skyrocketing. Our researchers are working on all sides of this
boom--from streamlining material specs, to developing new high-tech panels, to probing
barriers for communities with limited access. And they're doing it together.

Traditional panels are made out of silicon wafers. But that's old news to materials
science researcher Chito Kendrick, who is starting to look at indium gallium nitride photovoltaics. Along with Joshua Pearce, who has a joint appointment in materials science and engineering as well as electrical
and computer engineering, the two are examining new material combinations to see what
works best. In Kendrick's microfabrication lab, they parse through the inner workings
of solar cells.

Pearce has also collaborated with Durdu Güney and Paul Bergstrom in electrical and computer engineering. Their plasmonic enhancement research, often
coupled with nanostructures, maximizes how light is trapped in the cells, which can
increase energy output. Similarly, materials science researcher Yun Hang Hu is pushing the boundaries of solar tech by using graphene to increase efficiency.
He also works on dye-sensitized solar cells, which combine the inorganic materials
widely used now with organic materials.

These researchers live in an inherently interdisciplinary world. Not a single one
falls into a traditional materials or electrical background. Being interdisciplinary
in their own training enables them to collaborate more easily and see engineering
challenges from different angles.

Beyond materials and testing, solar technology is only good if people are willing
to install it in homes and businesses. Sociologist Chelsea Schelly wants to better understand what it takes to get solar on homes, especially in rural
communities. To Schelly, solar energy is about more than a trendy way to get electricity;
it's about building resiliency and independence in places that have limited access
to energy resources and infrastructure. Her colleague, Richelle Winkler, has also collaborated on similar work with an emphasis on the demographics of solar
adopters.

Understanding community dynamics is also important in the world of aquatic plants,
where one invasive species is encroaching on the northern Great Lakes.

Milfoil

Milfoil has impacted tourism economies and choked aquatic ecosystems. Long the bane
of Midwestern lakes in summer, milfoil—specifically, Eurasian Watermilfoil (EWM) and
its hybrids—have been spreading into the northern Great Lakes over the past decade.

A Michigan Tech transdisciplinary team plans to stop it.

But, how do you stop an invasive species that is so adaptable and tenacious? And it's
not a single plant or even a single species: EWM hybridizes with its native cousin,
making for a genetic spectrum that is hard to pick apart in a lab, let alone on a
rocking boat in an infested lake.

To handle such an entrenched invasive—most of the Midwest and parts of the East and
South have been battling EWM for several decades—the team spans several disciplines,
uses cutting-edge technology, and partners with local communities.

"You take all these different experts and get them working on the same problem, then
you find out all these different dimensions," says Guy Meadows, director of Michigan Tech's Great Lakes Research Center (GLRC), which serves as a project hub for invasive milfoil research.

Meadows focuses on underwater sonar imaging and mapping, while other team members
run supercomputer models, analyze milfoil genetics, keep tabs on ecological impacts,
track milfoil stands using drones, and survey treated areas to test treatment effectiveness.
The team works with communities in Michigan's Upper Peninsula that offer input and
help set the bounds of the treatments to get rid of EWM.

Casey Huckins, a professor of biological sciences at Michigan Tech, is the lead researcher for
several milfoil projects funded by the Environmental Protection Agency and Michigan
Department of Natural Resources. As a biologist with research experience on the ecology
of aquatic invasive species, he thinks of EWM as an invading plant—knowing that "controlling
it like a weed" is a common management technique.

Eurasian Watermilfoil thriving in Lake Huron last summer.

"Some people say, 'throw at it whatever you have, as much as you have,' so we can
just get rid of it," Huckins says, explaining that milfoil treatments can include
mower-like harvesters, beetles, fungi, and herbicide applications. Some communities
don't like that. "So we're trying to figure out what's the level of the threat and
at what point does that threat require treatment," Huckins adds.

Connecting the threat and treatment is not so straightforward, especially because
of the genetic variability. Preliminary data shows that the hybrids may actually be
more adaptive and harder to control than straight EWM. But knowing the plant's limits
helps; for example, it doesn't do well in deep water, seeking shallow bays instead.
Understanding these preferences—and potential adaptations—will help determine the
best treatments and predict where invasive milfoil might spread next.

"Some people say, 'throw at it whatever you have, as much as you have,' so we can
just get rid of it."Casey Huckins

That's where Pengfei Xue, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, steps in. He runs
models for the project on the supercomputer Superior, housed at the GLRC. One of those models assesses water current patterns, water temperature,
depth, and other factors that favor milfoil. The data could help predict where milfoil
will show up next; remote sensing and in-the-boat surveys help validate the predictions.

"Satellite imagery is useful for large spaces. But for smaller areas, UAVs [unmanned
aerial vehicle or drones] are better and more discerning."Colin Brooks

From up in the sky to down on the water, the Michigan Tech team is working with communities
to put EWM in its place—and remove it from the places we love before they're overgrown.

Fire also overruns places we love and admire. A team of Michigan Tech Research Institute
scientists is working to hold back the flames to better protect lives, property, and
iconic landscapes in the West and Alaska.

Fire

By Jennifer Donovan and Nancy French

It's redolent of cozy, crackling logs or the destruction of priceless timberlands.
But to those knowledgeable about fire research, it calls to mind an interdisciplinary
team of Michigan Tech Research Institute (MTRI) scientists and engineers.

MTRI is known for its remote-sensing expertise, using satellite imagery to track hitherto-hidden
data. And remote-sensing technology has thrust MTRI researchers to the forefront of
wildfire research. From the Alaskan tundra to the forests of California, they have
mapped and monitored wildfires and their impact on the environment.

Danger doesn't pass when the flames go out; burned landscapes are at higher risk of
floods and landslides.

Nancy French and Laura Bourgeau-Chavez, senior research scientists at MTRI, have been
working with the Alaska Fire Science Consortium since 1990. Their first fire research
in Alaska studied the extensive fires that burned more than three million acres in
the interior of Alaska that year. Using synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and historical
records, they helped create the first state-wide digital map of wildfire perimeters.
This map evolved into an interactive Alaska Fire History map currently in use, making fire data publicly available to management agencies and
researchers alike.

The MTRI team's main focus continues to be the role of fire in carbon cycling, the
process by which carbon is exchanged between living organisms and the environment.
The group has grown to eight investigators who work collaboratively with geographers
at the University of Maryland, where one of the original researchers, Eric Kasischke,
now works.

Carbon cycling is directly related to the creation of excess carbon dioxide (CO2),
called "greenhouse gas" because it acts like a blanket over the planet, trapping heat.
The result: climate change.

To determine the impact of fire on carbon cycling, the team developed methods to quantify
wildfires' consumption of duff—the partially decayed organic matter on the forest
floor—and to understand the variables that drive consumption and emissions in the
forests of the sub-arctic region, known as boreal ecosystems. They learned that estimates
vary based on site location and vegetation (fuel) type.

The research team also developed new, more accurate models that account for fire weather
and changes in fuel moisture, one of the main drivers of variability in fire emissions.

As a result, fire and fuels management specialists have been able to improve their
fire danger modeling and forecasting.

The MTRI team's research in northern North America now is part of the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration's (NASA) Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE).
Bourgeau-Chavez and French are continuing with the help of Liza Jenkins at MTRI and
Evan Kane with the School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science.

But French doesn't spend all her time in the frozen north. With a grant from the National
Institutes of Health, she conducted a study of the health threats produced by the
smoke from wildfires. Once again, she worked with an interdisciplinary team including
Brian Thelan, a MTRI statistician; Shiliang Wu, an associate professor of geological and mining engineering and sciences at Michigan
Tech who is an expert in atmospheric chemistry, air quality, and climate change; Michele
Ginsberg and Jeffrey Johnson with San Diego County Public Health Services; and Tatiana
Loboda, a University of Maryland geographer who specializes in analyzing future fire
risk.

"We know that climate change may cause an increase in the frequency and intensity
of wildfires. What we don't know is whether future fires will produce more particulate
matter and what effects this change might have on people's health."Nancy French

Her study found that the likelihood of people seeking emergency care due to wildfire
smoke from the 2007 fires increased 41 percent for the entire San Diego County region
and 72 percent in sub-regions most affected by the smoke.

"This type of analysis can be useful for emergency preparedness and public health
decision-making," French points out.

Meanwhile, MTRI research engineer Mary Ellen Miller has been studying fire remediation
to assess and prevent erosion, mudslides, and floods after a wildfire goes out. During
the 2015 fire season, her team, including MTRI research scientist Michael Billmire,
created post-fire erosion risk maps for the Butte and Valley fires in California.
Miller is also working on improving model performance by studying the 2012 High Park
Fire that burned in the Front Range of Colorado.

"Healthy forests create healthy watersheds," Miller says, explaining that runoff and
erosion are rare when vegetation and forest litter protects the soil. But fires can
consume those protective layers and increase the risk of floods and landslides. Hot
gases from burning organics can clump around soil particles, making the soil water
repellent—like a raincoat—and causing the water to run off the soil rather than soaking
in. With satellite images that characterize the burned areas, Miller creates hydrological
models with parameters based on how much ground cover is left, fire impacts on soil,
soil texture, climate, slope angle and length, and other factors. This information
forms a database used to model post-fire erosion and runoff. These predictions can
be used by land managers to determine what kind and how much remediation might be
effective after a fire.

Want to see more?

A preliminary database with information for the western states is now online. Modelers can choose fires
or a historical fire, or upload a new burn severity map.

Designer Probes, Protein, and Energy Gaps

Proteins are like nanomachines that carry out important biological functions in our
body—their complex forms have to fold flawlessly in order to work properly. But sometimes
they can misfold. This misfolding causes the proteins to get sticky, leading to aggregation,
which is the hallmark of neurodegenerative diseases like ALS, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's.

Protein stickiness is a result of surface hydrophobic interactions. But it's hard
to measure. A team of biochemists, synthetic chemists, and physicists are working
to improve that. Their research on hydrophobicity detection with BODIPY-based fluorescent
probes was published in Scientific Reports in December 2015.

Using the fluorescent probes, biochemist Ashutosh Tiwari measured hydrophobicity in three proteins: Bovine Serum Albumin (BSA), apomyoglobin,
and myoglobin. Compared to a commonly used commercial sensor (ANS), these new BODIPY-based
hydrophobic sensors showed much stronger signal strengths, with up to a 60-fold increase
in BSA.

Tiwari collaborated with Haiying Liu, who as a synthetic chemist, practices both the science and art of crafting molecules.
Liu's team created the fluorescent probes, a magnified version of which is seen in
the illustration.

"This is like going from having one 40-watt light bulb and then having 60 of them
in the same room, just imagine the difference in illumination."Ashutosh Tiwari

Then, to better understand how the probes worked—and why they are so much better than
ANS—Tiwari turned to physicist Ranjit Pati. The team shed light by carrying out the first-principles electronic structure calculations
to measure the energy driving the probes' fluorescence. The energy gap for several
of the sensors is about 2.2 electron volts, ideal for fluorescence.

Nethaniah Dorh, the study's lead author and a doctoral student with Tiwari, focused
on this work for his dissertation. "As a graduate student, going forward I have an
understanding that collaboration is key to progress—no man is an island," he says.

Geothermal

Minewater isn't wastewater— it could be a major energy source. Only 30 active minewater
geothermal systems exist in the world, and one of them is at Michigan Tech's Keweenaw
Research Center (KRC), directed by Jay Meldrum.

Chris Green, senior research engineer, oversees the KRC's minewater geothermal system.
The resource could also be an asset for the greater Keweenaw community. In order to
understand the barriers, economic benefits, and community make-up, they brought on
Richelle Winkler, a sociologist specializing in environment, population, and rural
community development.

Jay Meldrum, Richelle Winkler, and Chris Green.

The project is collaboration among an award-winning team of students from mechanical
engineering, environmental policy, electrical engineering, energy development, and
communications. They recently took home an award from the American Institute of Chemical
Engineers' Youth Council on Sustainable Science and Technology.

Learn more about the Alternative Energy Enterprise's geothermal work at Michigan Tech.

Hidden Engineering

Tim Colling

People expect their roads, bridges, and traffic signals to work, just as they also
expect drinking water, sanitary sewers, culverts, and storm drainage systems to be
invisible and functional. With a $4.7 million grant from the Environmental Protection
Agency, Michigan Tech's Center for Technology and Training (CTT) will expand how it
uses continuing education, engineering software, research projects, and technical
assistance to help infrastructure owners figure out how to make sure everything works.

Tim Colling is the director of the Center for Technology and Training and he coordinates a team of structural engineers, software engineers, communications
specialists, and civil engineers. They're a "helpdesk for engineers" running behind-the-scenes
problem solving to keep our country's infrastructure up and running.

"Everybody is looking for that silver bullet to solve infrastructure problems. People
don't realize that these are the challenges engineers deal with every day, and there
is no simple solution."Tim Colling

CTT Annually Provides

120 continuing education events reaching over 5,000 people

24,000 hours of training

1,800 hours of one-on-one technical assistance

Black Carbon

Dust specks are touted for their insignificance. But despite their small size, they
are responsible for the clouds in the sky and for having a profound effect on climate.
Black carbon particles, in particular, have global impact. Our Michigan Tech researchers
collaborated with a team from the Los Alamos National Laboratory and several other
universities to shed light on the complex way black carbon, other atmospheric particles,
and solar radiation interact to affect how they are warming the atmosphere. The research
came out in Nature Communications in September 2015.

Black carbon is rarely plain carbon and it often combines with other atmospheric particles
during its short lifespan as an atmospheric pollutant. Credit: Noopur Sharma

Claudio Mazzoleni

Physicist Claudio Mazzoleni led a group of students who focused on the project's microscopy work. The tiny particles
of black carbon&mdash; basically soot—are about the size of cornstarch dust. They
come from cooking fires, auto-mobiles, industrial plants, wildfires and other kinds
of burning, but don't stick around long in the atmo- sphere as their chemistry is
altered. Even their brief stint makes for some atmospheric warming. Because of that,
"Short-lived pollutants match up better with short-term political timelines," Mazzoleni
says.

Geohazards

There is nothing soft about bringing a social scientist into physical science research.
In the Interdisciplinary 2.0 world, antiquated divisions between disciplines—especially
the "hard" and "soft"—hinder applied research. Instead, incorporating social science
indicates a willingness to step into the complexity of real-world science and make
people part of the equation.

A number of people live not just near volcanoes, but on them. For these communities,
eruptions are only one of the risks—other geohazards like landslides, debris flows,
and flooding pose more frequent threats.

At the San Vicente Volcano in El Salvador, Bowman and colleagues from El Salvador
and Michigan Tech analyzed physical data—everything from rainfall to slope stability
calculations—and gathered social data from one-on-one interviews, community gatherings,
and key documents. This enabled Bowman and Henquinet to look into reasons why people
live in such hazardous places and to suggest more realistic evacuation plans and emergency
protocols. With the local communities invested in the work, they could account for
social vulnerability as well as geophysical vulnerability.

San Vicente Volcano in El Salvador.

Northern Institute of Applied Climate Science (NIACS)

Collaboration within science disciplines can be a challenge. This is especially true
for academic and government natural resource scientists collaborating with land managers.

It's a classic Ivory Tower problem. The data gathered by university and agency researchers
don't always make it to the managers of federal, state, tribal, and private lands.
With climate change, in particular, the research is continuously refining, predictions
are nuanced, and many of the most important findings are global in nature— difficult
to incorporate into a land management plan for just 10,000 acres within a specific
ecosystem. It's a challenge land managers face across the nation.

The effort is a partnership between Michigan Tech's School of Forest Resources and
Environmental Science and the U.S. Forest Service.

Michigan Technological University is a public research university, home to more than
7,000 students from 54 countries. Founded in 1885, the University offers more than
120 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in science and technology, engineering,
forestry, business and economics, health professions, humanities, mathematics, and
social sciences. Our campus in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula overlooks the Keweenaw Waterway
and is just a few miles from Lake Superior.